If At First You Don't Succeed
by Meatball42
Summary: Jack would let the whole universe die, just not him.
1. Chapter 1

Title: If At First You Don't Succeed  
Fandoms: Torchwood and Doctor Who  
Warnings (including spoilers): Spoilers for CoE, those thirty seconds at the end of End of Days.  
Wordcount: 6,436 words in six chapters and an epilogue  
Author's Note: The gorgeous art for this fic can be found at caz2y5 dot livejournal dot com slash 56928 dot html.

[*]

Jack should have been sleeping. After everything that had happened in the last few days, the explosion of the Hub (of_ Jack_), the concrete burial, finding out that Alice and Steven were hostages, Clem's revelations… he should be exhausted. He _was_ exhausted. But instead of sleeping, either in the fold-back seats of the stolen car or the cot Ianto had implied he'd be welcome to share, Jack was leaning against the outside of the warehouse, staring at the stars. Wishing for help to come.

_Why isn't the Doctor here?_

It was a plea, a prayer, one he'd made countless times before. Less often since he'd met up with the Time Lord again, but still… at the worst times, the ones he tried to put out of mind afterwards, he wished from a hidden dark place that the Doctor would sweep in and save the day, because that way maybe, just maybe, everyone would live.

A tingling at the edge of his senses made him turn, slowly, to face the alley between their warehouse and the next. It was an access road broad enough for a small lorry, and it was glowing with a sort of light that Jack could never forget; that light was a part of him, his history and his future.

He was more relieved than he should have been when his own doppelganger walked around the corner.

The other Jack was an absolute mess. Eyes shining fever-bright and red, skin ruddy and rubbed raw, he stumbled as he stalked toward Jack with a focus that hovered between violence and piety, hatred and hope.

The other Jack stopped a meter away, harsh breathing traveling the distance. In order to reach Jack, the sound passed through a wheezing throat, grinding teeth, and the repulsive force of a universe about to bend around and touch itself.

"You shouldn't be here," Jack said shortly, crossing his arms over his chest.

Other Jack shook his head, demon-eyes burning into Jack's. "It doesn't matter."

Jack stiffened. "Of course it matters. First contact is a major turning point for the Earth. You being here could make the timeline even more fragile. Tell me what you think you're doing!"

"I don't care," Other Jack said flatly. His muscles tensed, then released, his fists clenched, his eyes darted around but always came back to Jack's. He was a nervous wreck.

"Why are you here?" Jack asked.

"Don't," the other choked out, "whatever you do, don't send Ianto after Alice and Steven. Anything but that."

A silent vibration shook the back of Jack's head, spreading inexorably down his back like a deep, deep gong being struck. "I won't," he promised, his voice soft.

"Good," Other Jack said. He closed his eyes, and suddenly he seemed to be carrying the weight of the world. Or maybe he always had been, and Jack just hadn't noticed. "Good."

"What's going to happen to you?" Jack asked, unable to resist the knowledge even as he knew it could be the last straw on the universe's back. "Since you've warned me? Will you be able to go back?"

"Reapers," Other Jack answered.

Jack gaped at his future self's nonchalance. He didn't say _You'll die, painfully and horribly. You'll suffer for an immeasurable amount of time, agonized by your own non-existence. Why don't you care?!_

He gulped, loudly, and Other Jack cracked his eyes at last.

"I know," he said, and suddenly he looked more like a skeleton than a man. "Promise me you won't send him," he begged.

"I won't," Jack repeated. "I'll keep him with me."

Other Jack nodded once, then walked back to the end of the alley and disappeared around the corner. The light flared again for a few moments, then was gone.

Jack went back inside, suddenly more willing to take Ianto up on his earlier offer. As he walked, he drew his coat around him, grateful for its presence even if it wasn't truly his own.

Other Jack hadn't been wearing it.


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: Didn't mean to leave so long between chapters, RL was annoying. Sorry :(**

****[*]

It was months and months later that Jack decided. He'd sworn he wouldn't, so long ago, the day after, the week after, when rebuilding the world after the 456 had seemed like it would distract him enough. When he'd finally left Earth, it was in the hope that he wouldn't succumb to temptation. When he'd seen the Doctor (_too little, too late_) it had just reinforced the belief that this was the way it had to be, no matter how much he ached, how his stomach felt like it was full of rats that scratched at the very core of him.

Jack was weak. He could not stand the pain, not even for the sake of the universe. He gave in.

He opened the Time Vortex to the day before Ianto died and walked through into a familiar alleyway. He could feel the echo of Other Jack, the one who had sent Ianto after Alice and Steven, imprinted on the timeline even though he was taking that Jack's place. Time stretched and whined, but did not fray.

He rounded the corner of the alley, knowing his eyes were bright with alcohol, his skin dull and yellow, and walked toward his younger self with a halting gait of anxiety and foreboding.

In order to reach the younger Jack, the scent of hyper vodka on his breath passed through an influenza-choked throat, a wide, panting mouth, and the repulsive force of a universe pressing against itself.

"You shouldn't be here," younger Jack said, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring.

Jack remembered. That hurried yet weighty argument between faith in himself and fear of his own selfishness, his own recklessness. _Would I truly risk the universe?_ he had thought.

Jack nodded. "I know," he acknowledged.

Younger Jack scowled. "Then why are you here?"

"I need to fix something that went wrong."

Younger Jack considered this, turning his head slightly to the side in thought. "Are you completing a loop? Something that's already happened?"

_No_, he wanted to say, _stop me_. But the younger version of himself _would_ stop him. So instead he said, "Yes."

Younger Jack nodded and straightened his back in readiness. _Good soldier_, Jack thought uncharitably. _Probably thinks the Doctor sent me._

"Don't send Ianto after Alice and Steven. And don't take him with you to Thames House."

Younger Jack blinked and Jack could see the blood seeping out of his face.

Jack remembered how smart that plan had seemed at the time. Who else would he send after his daughter and grandson but the one man who would give up his life to defend something precious to Jack? He'd had plenty of time to wonder during the last few months about what had happened in the alternate timeline, whether his reliance upon Ianto's loyalty had been overestimating or taking advantage, and whether he or Ianto was more to blame, either way. Eventually, he decided to put it out of mind. It was not his burden to carry, after all. It was that of a Jack who no longer existed.

And this verion of Jack would never have to carry the weight of the word Don't.

"I won't," younger Jack promised. His eyes were wide, reflecting the stars that no longer had any pull for Jack. Nothing did. Especially since he was about to die.

Well, that was what he'd spent the last few millennia wishing for, right?

He nodded, once. Then turned and walked back toward the end of the alley.

"Wait," younger Jack called. "What's going to happen to you, since you've warned me? Will you be able to go back?"

Jack looked over his shoulder. "Reapers," he said, calmly.

He finally knew why Other Jack had not been afraid.

Younger Jack did not understand, but Jack could not spare him any more emotion. He turned the corner, opened the Vortex, and walked into the beckoning arms of the Reaper.


	3. Chapter 3

Jack should have been sleeping. After everything that had happened in the last few days, he should be exhausted. He _was_exhausted. But instead of sleeping, he was leaning against the outside of the warehouse, staring at the stars.

_Why isn't the Doctor here?_he wondered, begging the universe to give him a break, just this once.

A tingling at the edge of his sense made him turn, slowly, to face the alley. The sensation was familiar, and he was relieved when a carbon copy of himself came around the corner instead of someone less desirable.

Other Jack looked tired, bone-tired. His feet dragged as he made his way toward Jack, the unusual green jacket he wore hanging off his broad form. He dug deep into one of its pockets and held out a folded sheet of paper before Jack could speak his first admonishments.

"Just read it," he said hoarsely. "You'll understand." As soon as Jack took it- gingerly, between two fingers- he slumped against the side of the warehouse, a meter away from Jack.

When the universe did not implode, Jack unfolded the paper. Written in his own tense, cramped handwriting with blue ink, a hurried red scrawl, blotchy black tear-stained letters and faint, hesitant pencil, a list was drawn out. A short sentence at the top set off a silent vibration in the back of Jack's head that spread inexorably down his back like a deep, deep gong being struck.

_Save Ianto._

Beneath it was the multi-colored list, all the items crossed out. As Jack skimmed it, his hands began to shake, his stomach rolled, his heart recoiled and his mind began to fray.

_Send Ianto after Alice and Steven._

_Take Ianto to Thames House._

_Send Ianto back to Wales._

_Have Ianto stay in the warehouse._

_Send Ianto to the park with Rhys._

_Make Ianto go to Martha Jones._

_Make Ianto hide somewhere out of the way._

_Lock Ianto up somewhere where he can't get involved._

_Tell Gwen to watch Ianto at all times._

_Send Gwen to Thames House; stay with Ianto._

The list went on, getting crazier and more reckless all the while. Jack's mouth dried up and he wanted to close his eyes and pretend none of it was true. As he read on and imagined himself doing all the terrible things listed, he started to get dizzy, his inner ears reacting like he was being squeezed in a giant vice. Jack was frozen in place, but as soon as he reached the end of the list he was released. He stumbled to the wall of the warehouse and crumpled the paper in a trembling fist while he vomited onto the pavement.

"Why have you shown me this?" he gasped, his entire body shaking, trying not to retch anymore, trying not to cry, not to scream in horror.

"Because you need to think of something else," Other Jack whispered. There were deep bags under his eyes and his skin was stretched tight over his face. He looked like he'd lost weight, his pupils looked like he was high.

"How many times have you done this?" Jack demanded, voice astonishingly reedy and pathetic. He would not have believed he was capable of making such a sound, not before knowing of this abomination.

"Me?" Other Jack's pale, thin lips tilted in a grotesque smile. "Just this once. But I can feel the echoes of all the other times. They loved him too."

Jack was shaking his head wildly, choking on the remnants of his puke and coughing. "No, never. I would never do this!"

"That's what I said," Other Jack said ironically. "But here I am. I… I couldn't let him go." He exposed his face, his eyes, to Jack, his expression so full of despair and oblivion that Jack couldn't look at him any longer.

"What will happen to you, since you've warned me? Will you… go back, to the way it happened for you?"

"No," Other Jack answered. "I don't know how I'd… No, it's the Reapers for me."

Jack gaped at his future self's relief. He didn't say _You'll die, painfully and horribly. You'll suffer for an immeasurable amount of time, agonized by your non-existence. Why don't you care?!_

He gulped, swallowing chunks of the take-away Ianto had sourced for them earlier that evening. It seemed like lifetimes ago, and Jack realized with a start that that was because he, too, could feel the echoes of this moment, like a house of mirrors where he could see himself a thousand times, and suddenly he knew that he, too, would not be able to resist trying to fix whatever went wrong.

Other Jack peered at him, dead eyes smiling in morbid amusement. "Now you know. It's up to you to fix it. Because you don't want to end up like me, do you?"

Jack's hands began to shake again and he uncrumpled the list to stare at the most recent additions.

_Take Frobisher's family hostage._

_Retcon Ianto._

_Kill Ianto before he dies another way._

He hardly dared to look at Other Jack. "What did you do?" he whispered.

Other Jack just stared at him with eyes like carved out bores in dead trees. "You already know the answer to that."

Then he walked away, turning at the end of the alley. The Vortex flared in Jack's mind, and then was extinguished.

Jack stood in the middle of the alley for long minutes. At last, he pulled out a pen and birthed a new timeline at the bottom of the list. Refolding the paper and putting it into his coat pocket, he went back inside the warehouse, suddenly overcome with the urge to lay down beside Ianto and hold the young man as close to him as was physically possible.


	4. Chapter 4

**AN: Sorry, sorry, should be better about timing now.**

[*]

It was barely hours after Steven's death that he gave in, his Vortex Manipulator practically programming itself. It had happened so much faster this time, Jack knew, and didn't question how he knew.

He'd known, somehow, even as he watched the Fatida transportation service load Ianto's cryogenic capsule into the ship bound for Andromeda, that it would be hit by solar flares, or an engine would fail as it left the atmosphere. When he received the call that his cargo had been lost in an emergency crash landing, the renewed grief only amplified the clamor of voices inside Jack's head, urging him to go back, go back, _go back_.

He managed to hold on until the end of the two days that always had to be. He'd never once, in all the times he'd lived through this hellish pair of days, found a way to save Steven. He'd never tried. It was a fixed point, Jack knew, and his daughter's screams no longer touched him. Gwen's screams as she or her husband occasionally died no longer touched him. The only thing that touched him was a thousand repetitions of _I love you_ and a thousand times that light faded from gray-blue eyes.

As he passed through the latest loop, Jack could feel his edges being eaten away by time. In a more coherent moment, he laughed. _So much for immortal, eh Doc?_ The universe was eating him slowly, absorbing him into herself. Surely he could not last much longer?

He opened the Time Vortex to the day before Ianto died, and walked through into a familiar alleyway. He was immediately hit with the echoes of all his previous appearances here, the weight and power of them like a hammer swung full-strength into his gut. When his time-sense and vision finally cleared, he realized that this time was not like all the others.

Between him and the corner of the warehouse where younger Jack would be waiting stood a tall blue Police Box, with a tall Time Lord leaning against it.

"Doctor," Jack gasped. He stumbled forward, feeling as though he'd died a thousand times.

The Doctor caught him and the Tardis opened her doors, allowing the Doctor to drag him into the room that had once held all of Jack's hopes and dreams. Now he slumped on the floor, sobbing silently as a thousand paradoxical deaths-not-his melted away and the thousand deaths of Ianto Jones pressed even more firmly on his mind.

The Doctor knelt beside him.

"You can't do this, Jack," he said softly.

Jack ignored him, or maybe he just focused more on the Tardis floor. Part of him was unable to think, only to plan desperately, to yearn desperately, to love desperately, and if he hadn't loved Ianto before he would have to now, with his thousand losses echoed and magnified by repeated application to the time stream.

Jack fell to pieces on the floor of the ship, and slowly put himself back together again.

"Are you ready to talk?" the Doctor called from the console.

Jack took some deep breaths and shakily heaved himself up from the floor. He did not know how much time had passed. Distantly he knew this was important, that timing was very important right now and he _should_ know, but a warm golden humming wafted all his concerns away. He took the Doctor's offered hand without so much as a glance into the concerned brown eyes that watched him closely, and followed the Doctor to the kitchen.

"Drink some tea," the Doctor suggested.

Jack drank some tea.

"You can't do this, Jack," the Doctor told him once he had drunk half of the tea. "The fabric of space-time was so worn down over that moment that it was about to collapse. You know what would happen then."

Jack could only stare into his tea. Again, he didn't know if he was ignoring the Doctor or simply unable to respond; the words barely made any impact on his grief. But a golden humming changed its frequency very slightly and the Doctor frowned.

"I'm not being hard on you because I know you were trapped in a time loop, but really Jack, you should have known better than to meddle in the first place," he admonished, frowning. "Changing a turning point in the universe like first contact could have resulted in catastrophe, you _know_ that!"

Jack looked up at last, peering into the Doctor's passion-bright eyes with the dullness of a thousand deaths. "I wasn't trying to change that."

The Doctor's red cheeks got even redder. "Then what?" he demanded. "What could have been worth destroying the universe?"

"I couldn't stand it," Jack murmured. He didn't have enough strength left to speak. "There was no point without him."

"You did this for your boyfriend?" the Doctor clarified. He squinted at Jack as though he could see straight inside him.

Jack felt like a wheel of cheese punched through with so many holes that he could barely sit up. "I didn't even know I loved him until he died. But he was my best friend. My lodestone, my right-hand guy, the one I could tell anything. I didn't realize how much I needed him until he was gone. And for all that, I couldn't even lie to him when he died. Every time, Doctor, every time he's died he's told me that he loves me, and even though I kill myself out of guilt afterwards, I never say it, because he knows me so well that he would be able to see it's not true, not the way he wants it. Not until he's gone."

In order to reach the Doctor Jack's words traveled through lungs that were scratched and heavy, over a swollen and unwilling tongue, and through a wall of the deepest self-hatred and guilt.

Jack's eyes were wide like a child's, suddenly shining life-bright, and the Doctor could his own reflection in them.

"Maybe," Jack whispered. "Maybe if he lives I could learn to love him back. I owe him that much. I think I could love him. I want to."

"You won't, Jack." The Doctor spoke with the weight of a thousand years of seeing things worse than mere death. "You'll meet the Reapers as soon as you leave the Tardis."

The Doctor was apologetic; Jack was not. "I know," he said simply. "But there'll still be a me out there. There'll always be a me out there, right, Doc?" he smiled, spirits raised slightly by the reminder of his upcoming doom.

The Doctor did not tell him to stop, or not to call him 'Doc.' He just watched with those old, old eyes, and Jack's smile faded.

"You'll save him, won't you?" Jack asked, pleading unthinkingly to a man he'd sworn would never have anything over him again. "I need to know you'll save him."

The Doctor inspected him a moment more, then nodded. "It's the only way to stop the time loop. I'll save him," he promised.

Jack stood up. "Then I guess it's time for me to go."

At the entrance to the Tardis, the Doctor grabbed him and pulled him into a tight hug. Jack patted the Time Lord's back, feeling nothing at the gesture he would have been ecstatic to receive not too long ago.

"I'm sorry, Jack. I'm so, so sorry."

"I know."

Jack opened the Tardis door and closed it safely behind him before opening the Vortex. He grinned the Harkness grin one last time at the Reaper that waited for him, then embraced it.


	5. Chapter 5

Jack should have been sleeping. After everything that had happened in the last few days, he _was_exhausted. But instead of sleeping, either in the fold-back seats of the stolen car or the cot Ianto had implied he'd be welcome to share, he was leaning against the outside of the warehouse, staring at the stars. Wishing for help to come.

_Why isn't the Doctor here?_

As though in answer to his prayers, a beacon lit up to his senses and a unique sound rang through the air like a whimsical alarm clock. Suddenly awash with hope and excitement, Jack stepped toward the end of the warehouse and the source of that feeling he would never forget; it was a part of him, his history and his future.

And then, just as the Tardis fully materialized, another sensation began that Jack reacted to just as viscerally. It was the Time Vortex, opening by the command of a Manipulator. He drew his handgun and began sliding along the warehouse wall.

Jack froze midstep when he heard his own voice. _Why is another version of me here?_ he wondered frantically. _The Doctor and I both know better. _He cast out with his time senses and noticed a faint and muffled disturbance, like there was some big event just around a corner.

There was a scuffling sound, and then the door of the Tardis closed. Jack edged forward along the warehouse until he had a view of the Tardis from behind. Then he waited. He would wait as long as it took.

It was almost a half hour before the door swung open again. The other Jack stepped out and opened his Vortex Manipulator, creating a portal in the air before him that glowed like a sun, leaking red-gold light and flowing strips of the fabric of time.

Jack bit his tongue to avoid making noise when he saw the creature that reared up in the portal. It was dark and horrid. It cried out, an unpleasant sound on the hearing plane, but absolutely repulsive to any time-sensitive person. Jack watched, uncomprehending, as the other version of him walked carelessly into the creature's beckoning arms.

The Vortex closed. Shaking, Jack rushed around the Tardis and knocked on its door, barely restraining himself from knocking again when it opened. The Doctor was waiting there, looking decades older than the last time Jack had seen him.

"Doctor! What was that? What happened?"

His old friend shook his head tiredly, retreating up to the console where he slumped in the chair. Jack followed, beginning to feel the warmth and serenity that the Tardis always exuded. It calmed him, and he stroked his fingers along her railings and coral pillars, murmuring to her in his head.

Even if the Doctor couldn't stand him, he knew the Tardis still loved him.

When he looked back at the Doctor, though, he wouldn't have known that this was the same man who'd said he couldn't bear to look at Jack, because that was exactly what he was doing. His old, old eyes were filled with an aching loneliness, with compassion that Jack had seen before but never expected to be directed at him.

"What's wrong, Doctor?" he asked.

The Doctor shook his head, looking down at the console on which he leaned. One hand was supporting him against the living coral structure, while the other hung by his side, limp and empty.

Jack swallowed, unused to seeing the Doctor so still. Hairs were standing up on the back of his neck, and some primal foreboding stirred numbly at the back of his head, spreading down his spine like war drums. Like the marching of time, of death, the drums could never be stopped.

"Doctor?" he whispered through suddenly cold lips.

The Doctor looked up at Jack, eyes more distant and alien than Jack had ever seen them. He took a nearly silent, slow breath.

In order to reach Jack, his words traveled through the ripples of time that had been formed by the last version of Jack to step inside the Tardis, captured and preserved in her temporal grace. As they passed, the words nudged the ripples against each other like a train of dominos.

The result was that Jack collapsed to the floor under their weight before he even heard what the Doctor had told him.

"No!" Jack gasped. His own words echoed back at him three times as he focused on the Tardis floor, sobbing without comprehension at the sudden weight of a thousand deaths and grief magnified beyond his understanding.

Finally, the Doctor's words reached him. "I need to take Ianto."

"You can't!" Jack felt the weight and power of those words like a hammer swung full-strength into his gut. "I need him! I can't lose… I can't…" He slumped forward, holding himself up with trembling arms.

The Doctor caught him before he collapsed completely. "We've got to get you outside. The Tardis preserves temporal shifts, and you're too stubborn to forget…"

He dragged Jack to his feet, deceptively strong, and they tumbled out of the Tardis together. As soon as the cold, crisp night air touched his face Jack took a heaving gasp of air like he'd returned from the dead. The unbearable pressure of mourning and pain slipped away from his soul and Jack felt as though he had returned to life.

"What was that, Doctor?" he demanded. His thighs were shaking, from adrenaline or fear he couldn't tell. Jack glanced at the corner of the alley, toward the door to the warehouse where Ianto lay sleeping. The urge to run to him and make sure he was safe was practically irresistible.

"A time loop!" The Doctor's somber voice stopped him dead in his tracks. He spun around to find the Time Lord barely a foot away. "You created a time loop and trapped yourself inside it. You were minutes from tearing the fabric of reality when I stopped you, Jack."

Jack wanted to deny it, but he could sense, now, the fraying of the time-space continuum around this moment, removed from his current incarnation by mere heartbeats. A terrible chill came over him at the thought of what could have happened, overshadowing his fear for Ianto. "I'm sorry," he said sincerely.

The Doctor examined him for a few more seconds, then nodded. "Fair enough. It was a stupid choice the first time, and you should've known better," he said harshly, "but... even I make stupid choices every so often. And you couldn't control it, after it began." He stuck his hands in his pockets and gestured behind Jack. "Lead the way, then."

"What?"

"I told you. I've got to take your Mr. Jones."

Jack stared at his old friend, instinctual obedience warring with protectiveness. "Where? _Why?_"

"Don't know yet, and for your own good." He stepped around Jack and strode around the corner.

Jack was thrown off by the aching of the universe around him and the unexpected appearance of the Doctor. He followed wordlessly as the Doctor opened the door to the warehouse and brandished his Sonic Screwdriver momentarily before setting off toward the corner where Ianto's cot was set up. A dozen feet away from the bed, Jack could see Ianto's long body under the blankets, his pale face glowing in the light from the Screwdriver, and he grabbed the Doctor's elbow.

"I won't let you do this!" he whispered heatedly. He resisted the urge to grab the Doctor by the shoulders and shake him, _force_him. He felt like the concrete beneath his feet was tilting and the only measure of balance in his universe was standing easily before him, uncaring and out of reach.

"Believe me, Jack" the Doctor murmured compassionately, "I wish I didn't have to, but I don't have a choice."

"Jack?" The shape on the bed stirred. Ianto's eyes blinked open, a hand coming up to guard them from the Screwdriver's blue light. "Who's there?"


	6. Chapter 6

Jack couldn't move. The emotions he'd felt inside the Tardis welled up inside him once again, and the fear of losing the man who was slowly getting out of bed was nearly overwhelming.

He looked from Ianto to the Doctor and received another surprise. Instead of anger or disgust, Jack could see unexpected compassion in the Doctor's eyes once again.

"I'm sorry," the Time Lord told him, "but this really is for the best."

"Doctor?" Ianto was watching them both with wide eyes. "Are you here to help us?"

"No, Ianto, I can't," the Doctor said gently. "I'm sorry."

Ianto shook his head. "But you have to! The children… Doctor, they want ten percent, and the governments are giving in!" He looked at Jack. "Tell him!"

"There's nothing I can do about it, it's a fixed point in space and time. Humanity is on its own." The Doctor said the last with a tired air. "I know better now than to try and stop it."

"But you're the Doctor. This is what you _do_, you appear at the last minute and save the day. Doesn't he, Jack?"

"You should come with us," Jack said quietly. His face felt numb as he watched Ianto, his hands felt numb as they tried to reach out, his feet felt numb as they tried and failed to step toward him.

"Come where?" Ianto asked, though he was already gathering his shoes and stuffing them on his feet. "Do we have a plan?"

"Yes, yes we have got a plan." The Doctor looked up at the far-away roof and licked his lips.

"Then let's go, I'm ready." Ianto had been sleeping in his suit. Jack stepped forward without thinking and took his hand. Ianto gave him a look of surprise, but squeezed it awkwardly.

They left the warehouse. Jack tugged Ianto away from waking Gwen and Rhys, and tugged him even closer as they closed the door behind them.

"Jack, what's wrong?" Ianto demanded.

Jack looked at him, his skin and face and eyes, those gray-blue eyes that echoed the moonlight, and felt so scared. He didn't respond.

The Doctor stopped them both outside the Tardis. "This is as far as you go, Jack. Don't want a repeat of earlier, do we?"

Ianto looked between the two of them. "Then why are we here?"

"You've got to come with me, Ianto," the Doctor told him, glancing at Jack before saying, more quietly, "I am truly sorry, but I don't know if you can come back."

"No!" Ianto's grip on Jack's hand was suddenly crushing. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm sorry, Ianto, I'm so sorry." Jack whispered into his ear. At this time, in this exact spot, he could feel the universe holding on with the last strength she possessed. He knew if they lingered too long, she would snap.

Ianto turned to him and his miserable eyes, holding Jack's with a grip every bit as tight as the space-time continuum around them, hit Jack like a hammer swung full-strength into his gut. He remembered…

_Johnson's fingers squeezing the back of Ianto's neck, holding it upright. He whispered his last words to Jack through a video camera, and died before Jack could respond._

_Jack cradled Ianto in his arms before the eerie light of the 456's tank. Jack cried, he raged, he promised, but he still said_ Don't.

He remembered…

_Ianto's voice rasped over the earpieces and Jack could hear him coughing up liquid. He promised to keep Ianto's family safe, but he couldn't promise anything else._

_Martha visited him the day after he killed Steven, her husband unable to look Jack in the face as Martha delivered Ianto's last words. Jack couldn't say a word._

He remembered…

_The fear, the betrayal, the _confusion_ in Ianto's gray-blue eyes as Jack walked him across the warehouse by gunpoint. _Please, I love you_, he said, and Jack's hands shook as he pulled the trigger._

"I love you," he said, and Ianto's jaw fell slack. "If I never see you again, or if I can't remember this-" Jack tugged him forward, pressed their foreheads together, tried to memorize his lips in an instant, "know that right _now_I love you so much the universe can't even handle it."

Ianto huffed, almost a laugh, and stuttered. He couldn't get the words out, Jack realized, and despite the pain in his chest there was a poetic justice to it.

"Goodbye Ianto."

He stepped back, the universe groaned. The Doctor, frantic, pulled Ianto into the Tardis. Jack caught a last glimpse of those gray-blue eyes before the door slammed shut and the police box faded away.


	7. Epilogue

It was months and month later that Jack decided. He'd sworn he wouldn't, so long ago, the day after, the week after, when rebuilding the world after the 456 had seemed like it would distract him enough. When he'd finally left Earth, it was in the hope that he wouldn't succumb to temptation. When he'd seen Gwen and Rhys, together and closer than ever, it had just reinforced the belief that this was the way it had to be, no matter how much he ached, how his stomach felt like it was full of rats that scratched at the very core of him.

Jack was weak. He couldn't stand the pain, not even for the sake of a promise. He gave in.

He left.

Months later, there he was in some ritzy bar on some well-off trading colony, the atmosphere and the music far too happy for his melancholy state. After all that time, as much as he tried to forget, the memories of Ianto still appeared before him relentlessly.

_That first night, in the woods. _Love the coat_, he'd said. He really did, too._

_Bitter, hateful expression when Jack brought him home the night after Lisa's final death. Jack had sat outside his flat for hours, grateful for every second that he didn't hear a gunshot._

_His face relaxed for the first time in months as he slept in Jack's bed. Peaceful._

_The nanosecond of horror in his eyes, his open mouth, before Jack died from Owen's bullet._

_Those eyes, the longing veiled with suspicion as he let Jack into his hotel room against his better nature._

_Hiding eyes again, this time it was betrayal after the space whale case. Jack hadn't apologized, couldn't. He hoped being there was enough._

_For once, Jack was the one to approach after the circus people who came from out of the rain. Ianto didn't speak, just curled up close to Jack on the sofa and watched rain fall outside the window._

_They barely spoke for days after Tosh and Owen. Eventually, Ianto forced him to go to bed, kissed his forehead gently. Somehow, after that, everything seemed just a few shades lighter._

_One of those times that never happened, but did happen._

I love you_, he said. _I don't_, Jack didn't say, not really._

No, that wasn't what he said. Jack tipped back another Nova cocktail and hissed. He hadn't meant it like that. He just hadn't been ready. So much of their relationship had been about pain, and Jack was slow to recognize a good thing when it was right before his eyes. He hadn't been able to see how much he needed Ianto until…

He was gone. Jack was holding off admitting it, holding onto hope, to faith in the Doctor, to the promise he'd never really made. That timeline had never happened, but he could still remember.

_After he couldn't say it, Ianto had tried again. Begged for proof. _A thousand years_, he'd asked for, and how could Jack say no?_

In a completely normal bar on a completely normal trade station, Jack decided. He couldn't do it. There was no way he could wait a thousand years, holding onto the hope that the Doctor would bring Ianto back to him. He couldn't remember for that long, always with one ear to the wind for the ring of destiny. Couldn't hold onto the seeds of love in the back of his mind, sown in the fertile ground of loss, waiting for the impossible day they could sprout at last, when Ianto returned.

It was time to give up.

The bartender put a folded piece of paper on the counter before him. "From the man over there," he gestured.

Jack almost didn't look. There were only two men he wanted to see.

It was the Doctor. Jack sat up straight, and the Doctor nodded toward the paper. Jack opened it.

_She's in dock 88F_

He looked up questioningly, and the Doctor looked to his left. Jack turned.

Ianto stood there, dressed in the same suit he wore six months before, holding up a ring of keys. "He said not to go back to Earth for a few decades."

Jack looked back to the Doctor and exchanged salutes. He knew they were even.

Ianto was smiling, looking more at peace than Jack could ever remember. He stepped closer. "I didn't say it back," he told Jack a bit awkwardly. "But… I love you too."

Warmth sprouted inside of Jack and spread inexorably through his being like a deep, deep gong being struck, like the progression of time and life that could never be stopped.

He slid off the bar stool and took Ianto's hand, the one with the keys. "Looks like we've got some exploring to do." He stood in front of Ianto, so that his voice travelled no distance at all to reach him. "Goin' my way?"

"Always," Ianto replied, and Jack led the way to the stars.

[*]

**AN: Again, the fantastic art for this story can be found at caz2y5 dot livejournal dot com slash 56928 dot html. I'm sure you'll love it just as much as I do!**


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